The list of attributes that correlate to academic performance is long and picking from them is arbitrary. Eg:
{ People who study, people who cut class }
Country A: one freak Nobel laureate who likes to study, and a million citizens who scrape by but cut class.
Country B is the inverse: a million studious citizens, and one class-cutting deadbeat.
A's single Nobel laureate scores better at Math than than B's million nerds, and A's million deadbeats score better than B's sole deadbeat. Now country A is better at Math.
{ People who study, people who cut class }
Country A: one freak Nobel laureate who likes to study, and a million citizens who scrape by but cut class.
Country B is the inverse: a million studious citizens, and one class-cutting deadbeat.
A's single Nobel laureate scores better at Math than than B's million nerds, and A's million deadbeats score better than B's sole deadbeat. Now country A is better at Math.